ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

English auxiliaries and contractions

Okay kiddo, let's talk about English auxiliaries and contractions!

English auxiliaries are little helper words that we use to make sentences more clear or to add extra meaning. Some examples of auxiliaries are "am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "have," "has," "had," "do," "does," and "did."

Now, contractions are when we squish two words together to make them shorter and easier to say. For example, instead of saying "I am," we can say "I'm." Do you see how it's faster and easier to say "I'm" compared to "I am?"

Sometimes, we use contractions with auxiliaries to make sentences shorter and easier to understand. For example, instead of saying "You are going to the store," we can say "You're going to the store." Do you see how we used the auxiliary "are" and the contraction "'re" to make the sentence shorter?

Overall, English auxiliaries and contractions help us communicate more effectively by making our sentences clearer and shorter. Isn't that cool?